On Thursday, SIATech NCIS welcomed our Instructional Learning Specialist Ms. Chenu on her last stop of her San Diego County Tour. Ms. Chenu began her journey at San Diego Job Corps followed by South Bay Independent Study, and ending at NCIS.
The NCIS team was pleased that Ms. Chenu was such a good sport and collaborator, joining the NCIS ALS Team and leading students for a session. Ms. Chenu eagerly picked up the baton, and engaged students in a fun lesson. The topic was executive functioning skills, specifically memory methods.
Ms. Chenu enticed the students with some magic memory powder for the students to smell and savor, tapping into the tactic of engaging one's senses to channel focus. And, as it goes with superhero creation myths, they were transformed into Memory Wo/Man!
Ms. Chenu shared two mnemonic approaches with students. First, a warmup which included stretching, pointing, and seeing through walls (the usual, lol). Ad then introducing "BE FAST." The B stands for Believe in yourself and your ability. E for exercise. This articulated the connection between a healthy body and healthy mind. Forget: let go and open your mind to the new. Action, and the importance of learning by doing. State, which stands for getting in the right mindset or the right "state" for learning. Teach. This is final concept was that students know when they will learn something more fully as they teach it to someone else.
Ms. Chenu concluded by illustrating how stories can paint a picture in your mind of a whole list of things you need to remember. She took a handful of nouns to create visualizations as the students listened. "Once upon a time there was a gigantic Yellow Fire Hydrant suspended aloft by a bunch of red Balloons and these balloons are being pelted with Batteries thrown by a man in a Barrel standing on a Board and on this board, wouldn’t you know it, was a Diamond, and like diamonds do, it fell on a Knight who was standing on an Ox with Toothpaste on one horn and a neon Sign on the other, lighting the corners of my mind." The lesson demonstrated that it is much easier to remember all those terms by visualizing them in a story rather than just trying to remember them in a list.
NCIS is Always Learning Something memorable!
